e
peasants, men and women, were put into dungeons for their gold and
silver, were tortured with fire and smoke, were hung up by the thumbs,
were hung up by the heels with great weights to their heads, were torn
with jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow chests
filled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless fiendish ways. In
England there was no corn, no meat, no cheese, no butter, there were no
tilled lands, no harvests. Ashes of burnt towns, and dreary wastes, were
all that the traveller, fearful of the robbers who prowled abroad at all
hours, would see in a long day's journey; and from sunrise until night,
he would not come upon a home.

The clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily too, from pillage, but many of
them had castles of their own, and fought in helmet and armour like the
barons, and drew lots with other fighting men for their share of booty.
The Pope (or Bishop of Rome), on King Stephen's resisting his ambition,
laid England under an Interdict at one period of this reign; which means
that he allowed no service to be performed in the churches, no couples to
be married, no bells to be rung, no dead bodies to be buried. Any man
having the power to refuse these things, no matter whether he were called
a Pope or a Poulterer, would, of course, have the power of afflicting
numbers of innocent people. That nothing might be wanting to the
miseries of King Stephen's time, the Pope threw in this contribution to
the public store--not very like the widow's contribution, as I think,
when Our Saviour sat in Jerusalem over-against the Treasury, 'and she
threw in two mites, which make a farthing.'

CHAPTER XII--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND

PART THE FIRST

Henry Plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one years old, quietly
succeeded to the throne of England, according to his agreement made with
the late King at Winchester. Six weeks after Stephen's death, he and his
Queen, Eleanor, were crowned in that city; into which they rode on
horseback in great state, side by side, amidst much shouting and
rejoicing, and clashing of music, and strewing of flowers.

The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The King had great
possessions, and (what with his own rights, and what with those of his
wife) was lord of one-third part of France. He was a young man of
vigour, ability, and resolution, and immediately applied himself to
remove some of the evils which had arisen in the last